Murray N. Rothbard/Winter War

Rothbard and the Winter War

by Tim Starr, September 11, 2002 [1]

Rothbard’s Cold War Wackiness: I’ve been asked by Mikko Ellila to comment on Rothbard’s interpretation of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, as he presented it in his libertarian manifesto, For A New Liberty (FANL). It’s been a very long time since I’ve read FANL, and I wasn’t terribly impressed with it at the time since I was already quite familiar with the basics of libertarian theory. However, I wasn’t very familiar with Soviet history at the time, so I didn’t notice how strange many of his claims about it are. Since Mikko is himself Finnish, I thought I’d start with Rothbard’s account of the Winter War, fought between the Soviet Union after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and before the German invasion of Russia:

“ The old pre-World War I Russia had now been restored with the exception of Finland. But Finland was prepared to fight. Here the Russians demanded not the reincorporation of Finland as a whole, but only of parts of the Karelian Isthmus which were ethnically Russian. When the Finns refused this demand, the “Winter War” (1939-1940) between Russia and Finland ensued, which ended with the Finns conceding only Russian Karelia.

— Murray N. Rothbard, For A New Liberty, p. 285

While I’ve read several books which describe the Winter War and its causes, this is the first time I’ve read the claim that there was anyone in Finnish Karelia who was ethnically Russian, much less that Stalin’s demands were intended to incorporate them into Soviet territory. My sources all cite other demands made by Stalin, with other purposes. For example, here’s what the highly-respected British military historian, Sir John Keegan, says about it:

“ Finland had been Russian territory between 1809 and 1917; when it won its independence after fighting against Russian and local Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, it had obtained a frontier demarcation which Stalin decided ran too close for strategic comfort to Leningrad and the Soviet Baltic ports. On 12 October 1940, a week after Latvia had signed its dictated treaty, the Soviet Union confronted the Finnish government with demands for naval basing rights and the cession of a large strip of Finnish territory in the Karelian isthmus leading to Leningrad.

— John Keegan, The Second World War, p. 47

The reason given by Keegan is the closeness of the Finnish border to Leningrad and the Soviet Baltic ports, not the presence of ethnic Russians in Finnish Karelia. Now, let us consult one of my favorite historians of WWII, Richard Overy:

“ Having absorbed half of Poland, and temporarily averted the German threat, Stalin was eager to press on with the fulfilment of the terms set out in the secret German-Soviet protocols. The Baltic states were asked to sign treaties of mutual assistance in the two weeks following the Polish defeat. The treaties gave the Soviet Union the right to station troops in Baltic bases. A few weeks later, on October 5, similar demands were made of Finland: a naval and air base at the mouth of the Baltic at Hanko and cession of the Karelian isthmus north of Leningrad to provide a better defence of that vital city. In return Finland was offered a large area of Soviet territory in Karelia. The Finns refused and on November 13 negotiations were broken off. Stalin almost certainly would have preferred a political solution, but when the Finns refused to be intimidated he tore up the Soviet-Finnish non-aggression treaty and prepared for a military campaign to bring Finland entirely into the Soviet orbit. A puppet Communist government-in-waiting was established for Finland, and Stalin drew up plans to incorporate Finland into the Soviet Union as the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic.

— Richard Overy, Russia’s War, pp. 55-56

That quote from Overy puts Stalin’s demands in the context of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Stalin’s forcible imposition of treaties upon Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The Red Army never left their territory until the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, more than half a century later. Overy also points out that when Stalin’s minimal demands were rejected, he determined to totally annex Finland by military force. This, along with the demands for naval bases, makes a mockery of Rothbard’s claim that Stalin’s demands were limited to the incorporation of territory allegedly inhabited by ethnic Russians into Soviet territory. However, these brief accounts by Keegan and Overy are from books about the Second World War in general, not specifically about the Winter War. As it happens, I also have a book about the Winter War, and here’s what it has to say about Stalin’s demands:

“ At the first high-level meeting in Moscow, on October 12, Stalin wasted no time putting his demands on the table. His main strategic problem, he said, was the vulnerability of the frontiers around Leningrad [ Saint Petersburg ]. In order to improve the city’s security, he needed —indeed, he MUST have—the strongest possible assurances of continued good relations with Finland...

The Soviet Union therefore demanded:

• that the frontier between Russia and Finland in the Karelian Isthmus region be moved westward to a point only 20 miles east of Viipuri, and that all existing fortifications on the Karelian isthmus be destroyed;
• that the Finns cede to Russia the islands of Suursaari, Lavansaari, Tytarsaari, and Koivisto in the Gulf of Finland, along with most of the Rybachi Peninsula on the Arctic coast. In compensation for this, Stalin was willing to exchange 5,500 square kilometers of East Karelia, above Lake Ladoga;
• that the Finns lease to the USSR the peninsula of Hanko, and permit the Russians to establish a base there, manned by 5,000 troops and some support units.”

— William R. Trotter, A Frozen Hell, pp. 15-16

Trotter also confirms that Stalin set up his own puppet government for Finland, which promptly signed a treaty ceding all Finnish territory to the Soviet Union. But he doesn’t mention any ethnic Russians inhabiting Finnish Karelia or any demands by Stalin for the incorporation of the territory on which they were living into the Soviet Union. Rothbard's only footnote was to a book by the Finnish foreign minister at the time, which also said nothing about any ethnic Russians in Karelia. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to where Rothbard got this argument and what factual evidence there is to support it. Rothbard’s argument doesn’t even square with the usual line taken by pro-Soviet revisionists, which is that Russian foreign policy was basically the same as Tsarist Russian foreign policy. But, as even Rothbard’s quote above makes clear, restoration of the Tsarist Empire would mean the total reincorporation of Finland, since Finland was part of the Tsar’s territory before the Bolshevik Revolution.

That’s not all Rothbard had to say about Finland, however:

“ The cold warriors find it difficult to explain Russian actions in Finland. If Russia is always hell-bent to impose Communist rule wherever it can, why the ”soft line“ in Finland? The only plausible explanation is that its motivation is security for the Russian nation-state against attack, with the success of world communism playing a very minor role in its scale of priorities.

— Murray N. Rothbard, For A New Liberty, p. 287

The “soft line” Rothbard’s referring to is the limited territorial concessions Finland made to Russia after WWII, along with neutrality in the Cold War, in exchange for Russia letting Finland keep most of its territory. Actually, this is not so difficult to explain: the Red Army never successfully conquered and occupied Finland, thanks to the valiant defense the Finns made against the Soviets at the Mannerheim Line in the Winter War. By the end of World War II, the Soviets did have the military capability to defeat Finland, thanks to the improvements that had been made since their defeat by Finland in 1940 - improvements which were partly motivated by the Finnish victory. However, these improvements were made in large part because of supplies and equipment the Soviets had gotten from the Western Allies, mainly the USA, and the Soviets were only able to defeat Germany thanks to the support of the Western Allies. This put a constraint upon Soviet actions that hadn’t been present in 1940: In order to keep getting support from the Western Allies, Stalin had to refrain from acting in ways of which the Western Allies would disapprove. Stalin even promised to hold free elections in the countries that had been occupied by the Red Army, to maintain a united front with the Western Allies. It was only after none of those elections resulted in victory for any of Stalin’s Communist parties that he proceeded to puppetize those countries by force. But, by that time, the West was opposing any extension of the Soviet sphere of influence by military invasion, so it was too late for Stalin to invade Finland and puppetize it without risking military resistance by the West, which Stalin wanted to avoid above all else.

So, Rothbard’s description of the Cold War view of Soviet foreign policy is in need of a bit of modification, or clarification: the Soviet Union WAS hell-bent on imposing Communist rule wherever it could, but it couldn’t do it when facing resistance by military forces capable of resisting the Red Army, either the Finns at the time of the Winter War, or the Western Allies in post-war era. By using the case of Finland the way he does, Rothbard is trying to use an example of successful military resistance to Soviet expansionism to argue that there was no such thing as Soviet expansionism by military means.

[ once again, Mises was right: “The fortunate circumstance that saved civilization from being destroyed by the Russians was the fact that the nations of Europe were strong enough to be able successfully to stand off the onslaught of the hordes of Russian barbarians. The experiences of the Russians in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, and the Turkish campaign of 1877-78 showed them that, in spite of the great number of their soldiers, their army is unable to seize the offensive against Europe. The World War merely confirmed this.” — Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism ]